Become a Fan

June 30, 2009

I honestly have no idea how this bill has made it this far....or how anyone who has looked at it at all objectively supports it.

But in California, SB 250 was heard today by the California Assembly Business and Professional Committee. The bill passed through the committee and will now go to the Assembly Appropriations committee. If this bill passes it would essentially require mandatory spay/neuter of all dogs and cats in the state of California....and will most likely cost hundreds of thousands of animals their lives.

Last year, the city of Los Angeles began enforcing its law mandating the spay/neuter of all pets.

We can't. And instead of just seeing what happened in Los Angeles, where thousands of animals were killed because of their new law, the state of California will be adding a huge multiplier and will literally see tens ofs thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, more pets killed if this ordinance passes.

There is a lot more information out there on this topic from people who have been following it a lot more closely than me. For starters, check out the Pet Conneciton -- who has covered the bill here and most recently here. And more here from Save our Dogs.

Mandrell's parents apparently put him to bed and checked on him around 7:30 on Saturday night. According to official reports, the boy apparently got up shortly after that, pushed the screen out of his bedroom window, and crawled out the window. At that point, he was apparently attacked by at least one of the three mixed-breed dogs owned by the family that were out in the yard at the time.

The death is being ruled an accident.

Three year old kids are incredibly mobile, and are prone to finding ways out of the house and finding trouble once they do. In this case it was tragically the dogs owned by the family.

I'll post more details as they emerge. This is starting to get picked up in a lot of newspapers this morning so I wanted to comment before it hit too many media outlets.

-- None of the three family dogs had ever shown aggression to any family member

-- It is unknown which dog started the incident or which ones were involved in biting the child, but it appears that more than one dog was involved in attacking the child.

-- Apparently the young boy crawled out the window with a stuffed animal in tow -- and it is believed that the incident likely began over the stuffed animal.

-- The residence had no air conditioning and had numerous box fans on at the time that would have made it more difficult for the adults in the house to hear anything.

-- The adults were at the opposite side of the house to where the child's bedroom was and where the incident occurred. The boy was injured in such a way that would have made yelling impossible

-- The home appears to be in a very rural and wooded area, so there would have been no neighbors around to hear the commotion either.

This just truly looks like a terrible situation where a very mobile child got away when he should have been asleep, and ended up in the middle of a group of dogs with one or multiple members being toy motivated and caused a bad attack. Again, my sincerest condolences to the family.

In total, this story was picked up by 27 news sources -- almost all in Southern Illinois.

June 28, 2009

It's been a crazy couple of weeks for me -- so this is the first weekly roundup we've had in awhile. I'm going to cover most of the stuff from this past week, but I'm going to go back and pick up some of the stories from the past 2 weeks as well...but not of them. I don't know that anyone would take the time to read them all anyway even if I did. Have a great week....

Fayette, AL passed a ban on 'pit bulls' this week. At least one city council member admitted that it was in part because he thinks there are people involved in dog fighting in their community but they have been unable to stop the activity. I have never understood how city council members think that they can stop a felony activity with a misdemeanor law....

A "German Shepherd Chow Mix" (that looks way more like a Blue Heeler to me) has apparently been menacing a neighborhood in Springfield, MO -- having been involved in at least 2 bites in the past month. Springfield passed a ban on 'pit bulls' 3 years ago but has not been very good at dealing with menacing dogs of other breeds. Earlier this year, a state representative from Springfield's Labrador was caught off-leash and involved in a couple of different bite incidents.

In Ft Lauderdale, FL, a young girl was bitten by a 'pit bull' that was apparently confined by a chain that it broke free from. Chaining as a primary form of confinement is not a recommended way of keeping a dog.

A 70 year old Washington woman died two weeks ago when her dog, a miniature Schnauzer, was attacked by a Labrador retriever when they were out on a walk. The off-leash Lab attacked her dog, and the woman died of a heart attack while trying to defend her dog.

A 12 year old Laredo, TX boy was severely bitten by a "Husky" that left the boy hospitalized. The dog is going to be allowed to live because it is assumed that the boy, because of his lack of knowledge about animal behavior, did not realize he was doing something that would provoke the dog. I am knowledgeable enough abou tthe dog to comment on whether that is a good decision or not, but I do think it's interesting how this is being portrayed vs how similar attacks by pit bulls are often handled.

A Husky/Rottweiler mix attacked a man and sent him to the hospital with serious injuries in Ottawa. Ottawa is covered by the Ontario ban on pit bulls -- which still is not working to improve public safety.

I post these stories not to create concerns about the safety of dogs. Dogs remain extremely safe animals to have around in homes with even the most basic of management. I post these to show the wide array of dog breeds that are involved in attacks, and that each attack has its own set of circumstances that led up to the attack occurring - of which breed is irrelevant. We must focus on these causes of attacks if we want to improve the situation.

UK Dangerous Dogs Act -- still failing

I could almost do my own round up on the UK's failings from the past 3 weeks. But their ban on four breeds of dogs continues to be a failure. Attacks from the past three weeks include ones by a German Shepherd, Akita, Akita-Doberman mix, Rottweiler and a Collie, Sheepdog, Akita and Mastiffs. The UK continues to prove that even if you ban certain breeds of dogs, there will always be another breed that causes problems. If you want to solve the problem, you must focus on irresponsible dog owners.

A three month old toddler was killed in the UK after his grandmother left him out on a kitchen table unattended with two dogs while she slept. The two dogs dragged the child off the table (the baby was badly injured in the fall) and bit the infant several times -- leading to the infant's death. This is another awful tragedy, that could have been easily avoided, if instead of blaming breeds of dogs for attacks the government in the UK would have focused on responsible dog ownership instead -- like not leaving your tot alone with two dogs.

The Henderson County (TX) animal shelter is in a finanical crunch that has left them with a food shortage. While I get that money is tight in these times, their solution isn't really a solution at all. Their solution is that if they cannot afford to feed the animals they will begin euthanizing them -- not trying to raise more money for food or adopting them into homes. Why would euthanasia be their first response to the crisis?

Residents and animal welfare professionals in Pittsylvania County, VA are calling for changes at the county shelter because the kill rate is too high, shelter too dirty, and operating hours too few. This is exactly the type of change we should all demand in our own cities if city/counter shelters are not doing an adequate job.

Miscelanious

This is a good overview of the LollaPAWlooza event in Kansas City last weekend raised nearly $5,000 for the new local animal shelter in KCMO.

Speaking of Hector, Roo Yori, Hector's owner, has started a blog that includes a wealth of stories about Hector and his Frisbee Catching housemate Wallace over at Pit Bull United -- definitely worth checking out.

June 27, 2009

Shortly after I finished Thursday''s post, I got an update about Leonard Shelton.

Mr. Shelton is the member of our military that came home from serving our country in Iraq, and then had to deal with the city of Lakewood, OH,badgering him about the type of dog he was walking because they claimed the dog was a pit bull (which are banned in Lakewood). They confiscated his dog.

I'm happy to report that Mr. Shelton and his dog Roscoe are back together...and that Mr. Shelton has moved from the city of Lakewood so he will no longer be harrassed.

While it is great that they are back together, and Shelton can go on trying to get back to life as usual, it's appalling that one of our war veterans would be harrassed by animal control because of the way his dog looks...and be forced to move because of it.

Amazing. I'm sure everyone in Lakewood can hold their heads high over the way the law is being used and defended. I know I'd be embarrassed, and livid, if I lived there.

One would think the very act of harrassing a someone who served and defended our country because of his dog would be enough to in a post by itself. And it probably would be. But there's more to this.

During this whole process, Mr. Shelton went out and got the DNA test done on his dog. The net result? No traceable amount of any of the "pit bull" breeds in Roscoe's DNA. None.

And while Shelton was told that Roscoe was a Boston Terrier mix (which is why he didn't think he would be affected by the law), there is no traceable amount of Boston in him either.

And this is exactly why every single one of these laws, that claims a dog to be banned, or dangerous, or automatically aggressive, based on the way it looks if it looks too much like a "pit bull" should be struck down based on vagueness.

According to our legal Void for Vagueness Doctrine, a law is considered "vague" if a person of ordinary intelligence cannot determine what persons are regulated or what conduct is prohitbited. It is also designed to prevent arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement of laws.

In this case, how would someone who owns a dog with zero trace of a pit bull in him would still be restricted under an ordinance that restricts a breed of dog that he does not own?

Just this week, Animal Farm Foundation and the National Canine Research Council released a new "find the pit bull" sheet -- this time containing the results from actual DNA tests to go with the pictures.

Can you guess which ones carry significant amounts of "pit bull" breeds?

Do you trust that animal control in a city with a ban on 'pit bull' breeds can tell the difference?

And in spite of all of this, even if they could accurately tell if a dog was really a 'pit bull', that it still wouldn't indicate that the dog was actually aggressive.

So why have we stuck with BSL for so long? Why do we allow our governments to enforce vague laws against good people in the world like Leonard Shelton who become unsuspecting victims of these laws. Why not focus all of our energies on people who actually have dogs that behave aggressively, instead of harrassing good people and forcing them to have to move from their homes because of an arbitrary law that they didn't even break?

We'd all benefit if we used our limited animal control resources more wisely than that.

And Lakewood, OH -- shame on you.

-- When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace -- Jimi Hendricks

June 25, 2009

In April, 2005, Briggs was serving our country as a part of our National Guard in Iraq. His group was attacked by a group of insurgents, and Briggs suffered a penetrating head wound. Briggs lost his right high, nearly half his skull, and received a brain injury that left him partially paralyzed.

On his road to recovery, he and his wife adopted a Rottweiler named Pock, and with the help of a not-for-profit training group, Midwest Assistance Dogs, Pock was trained to help Briggs with a variety of tasks as he deals with his disabilities. Pock is now trained to help Briggs with stability, balance, and helping him pick things up.

"I've been around animals a lot in my life, and when you see a special bond, it's hard to ignore it," said Brigg's wife Michelle.

Fortunately for Briggs, he does not live on military base housing. Earlier this year, the US Military banned dogs like Pock from all military base housing because of their ban on 'pit bulls", Rottweilers, Doberman Pinchers, Chows and Wolf Hybrids from military base housing. So now, a dog that is working as a service dog for one of our wounded military men, would not be allowed to accompany him on a military base. Does that make sense to anyone at all?

This shows the absurdity of not only discriminating against breeds of dogs based on their breed. It also reinforces the absurdity of the military's breed ban on their military bases.

Unfortunately, other military personel aren't as lucky as Briggs. Just last month, a military veteran from Iraq that is is suffering from post traumatic stress disorder from dealing with the loss of several friends in the line of fire, had his companion dog confiscated from him in Lakewood, OH. The man relied on his dog to help him to be more at ease when he met new people. The dog was confiscated by Lakewood police because of a ban that was enacted while he was serving his country.

Dogs are great companions for people -- and they can be the type of companions that can really help people in times of need. This ability stretches across all breeds of dogs. It is time to end the descrimination. Now.

June 23, 2009

Reading the news this week almost resembles reading articles from The Onion - only without the humor and the wit. The public/media reactions to events not only crazy, but it's also got me wonderng if we're even making efforts to protect the right species.

In Troy, MO, the city council unanimously approved an ordinance that bans all new 'pit bulls' from a city (as well as any mixed breed that contains "an element" of these breeds -- I'm not sure if you could write anything more vague than that). The community passed the ordinance when a resident supposedly saw two 'pit bulls' running at large in the city. Apparently one resident had his dog mauled by the dogs and requested a ban. Three things impress me about this:

1) That the only people who identified the dogs as 'pit bulls' were residents -- and the general public is far from being breed ID experts.

2) If the city law enforcement cannot even round up stray/at-large dogs, how are they ever going to enforce the city's breed ban?

3) How is one incident indicative of every "pit bull" type dog in the community?

By contrast, in Danvers, MA, a Labrador Retriever attacked and killed a Miniature Schnauzer. It's the same scenerio as what happened in Troy, however, there has been no talk of banning Labradors in the community. In fact, they're still talking about whether the dog will be allowed to move out of the city vs killing it in the shelter. While I support Danvers' approach, why such a contrast in how the same incident, involving different breeds, is handled? In one, they banned all similar type dogs? In the other, they are looking specifically at the individual dog?

When people talk about breed descrimination, this is it.

But it gets even wackier.

There was quite a horrific incident in Sea Tac, WA. As best I can gather from the media four young teenagers between the ages of 11 and 15 beat a dog and assaulted 2 adult women. At some point, a 63 year old woman was driving downthe road and saw three boys and a girl repeatedly hitting and kicking a dog on the side of the road. The woman stopped her car, and asked if the youth needed help. At that point, the 15 year old girl told her to mind her own business, and then opened the care door and started attacking the woman -- pulling her hair and dragging her over to the passenger seat of her car. When the woman tried to get away, the girl chased her and continued hitting her, and the boys followed. At some point, the dog that they had been beating apparently bit the woman on the wrist and leg.

Meanwhile, a 2nd woman, 41, saw the first attack and followed the youth to a nearby park. When the kids realized they were being followed, the girl reported head butted the second woman and punched her several times in the head and body. The three boys accompanied the girl and reportedly provoked the dog to bite the woman while the girl assaulted her.

While all of this is horrific, what is possibly more amazing to me is that the pit bull seems to be getting the majority of the blame (especially early on), not the 15 year old girl who is apparently quite the debutante. Here are the headlines:

How in the world does anyone read what happened in Sea Tac and think that the problem here was with the dog? There isn't a single thing about that would even hint at these being model owners. In fact, I would venture to say that it is quite the testiment to the breed's devotion to humans (whether really earned or not) that this dog didn't go after the kids that were beating and kicking it in the first place.

And who is going to pretend out there that any dog, regardless of breed, that ended up in a situation where it was clearly abused and beaten by its owners wouldn't have a propensity to have a few aggression issues. If someone repeatedly beat and kicked me, I know I would have aggression issues if given the opportunity.

How in the heck does someone, even for an instant, try to pin this incident on being a breed issue?

And as more and more stories come out about abuse and cruelty cases -- a large number of them involving 'pit bulls' -- it is becoming increasingly clear to me that we're trying to protect the wrong species. Just in the past couple of weeks:

With owners like this, is it any wonder some dogs become aggressive? In spite of the fact that dogs are naturally very friendly toward people, there are some people who just have a way with abuse and neglect. And do we think that if a dog is terribly mistreated, as it was in the case in Sea Tac, that it would matter what breed was involved whether it became aggressive or not?

Not likely.

Of the 7 million or so pit bulls that live in the United States, the majority live with great owners: people who care about them, love them, walk them, snuggle with them, and share beds with them. We don't read a lot about these people in the news, but there are litteraly millions of them out there.

However, for a variety of reasons, the pieces of crap that will cruelly treat dogs have gravitated toward this type of dog. And instead of going out and enforcing cruelty and neglect laws with a vengeance to protect the dogs from this cruelty, the media through their blaming of breed in spite of clear evidence that it's not the breed, and city councils who now react completely differently to attacks by one breed vs those by a different one, have somehow convinced themselves that the "solution" to the problem is rounding up all the dogs that resemble the victims and systematically killing them with breed bans.

That's no solution.

It's time to put an end to the nonsense. It's time to quit blaming the victims of human cruelty and stupidity, and start blaming the humans themselves - and vigilently prosecuting their abusive behavior. This cycle will never end until we do, because even if you exterminate one breed,there will always be another breed. It sucks. As humans, we don't like to look at ourselves and blame our own kind for the problems that exist. We don't really like seeing the massive failings of our own humanity.

But until we do, the problem will go on. And we need to end the abuse now -- and quit blaming the victims of the abuse for the problem.

So their council is now looking at adding other breeds such as German Shepherds, Rottweilers and Doberman Pinschers to the list -- bringing them more in line with what Southern Ireland has done by adding Bull Mastiffs, Dobermans, Bull Terriers, German Shepherds, Japanese Akitas, Rhodesian Ridgbacks, Rottwielders and "Ban Dogs" to their restricted list.

And the problem still will not be solved. There will always be another breed. And when they ban them all, they'll create new breeds (mastadoodle?) that don't even exit yet. Because the dogs aren't the problem. They've never been the problem.

This is why a city like Council Bluffs, IA, who has banned 'pit bulls', can claim they have all but eliminated 'pit bull' bites, yet have not seen a drop in overall dog bites...they still have not dealt with the problem owners.

What smart cities across the country (and world) are now doing is learning from the failures of breed specific legislation, and going back to focusing on the owners of aggressive dogs. They focus their efforts on dogs that show signs of aggression, not breeds. And they are putting restrictions on owners who have been habitual problems.

When it comes to public safety, "Breeds" are irrelevant. If someone wants a dangerous or intimidating dog, they will get one. There will always be a different breed, or a newly created breed, or something they can use.

This is why if cities want effective dangerous dog legislation they will focus on dog owners and not breeds. This is what has happened in Minneapolis and St. Paul, MN, and Calgary, AB, and all three cities are seeing declines in dog bites and improvements in public safety.

It's time to start focusing our efforts on the two-legged end of the leash -- otherwise there will always be just another breed to add.

June 21, 2009

I have two weeks of weekly roundup stuff that may or may not ever happen. If you are loyal to the weekly roundup, sorry. I'm going to try to at least hit some of the highlights.

Things have been really, really busy. We have a LOT of great things going on in Kansas City right now.

The Greater Kansas City Humane Society (among others) is doing a lot of work with the Kansas City, KS Shelter and has brought their euthanasia rate from around 50% to 4% over the past 5 months.The laws in KCK are as bad as they could be anywhere, but it goes to show how having people working their butts off to get animals into homes makes all the difference in the world when it comes to saving the lives of animals. They had one of their biggest fundraisers of the year with their Dog and Jog. They had around 1,000 people who signed up to run with their dogs in either the 1 mile or the 2 mile race. They probably had another 500-1,000 more who showed up just to check out the vendors and hang out with their dogs.

While the event was great for GKCHS, it was a really good event for KCDA also as we got a chance to meet with a lot of people who care a lot about their dogs -- and care a lot about the laws that are having an impact on their daily lives living with their dogs. And even though many were not actively involved in rescue, or sheltering, they cared a lot about creating a no kill community in Kansas City. It was uplifting to talk to so many great people at the event.

Yesterday, we spent 1/2 the day at LollaPAWlooza. Many of the people there were getting very involved in trying to get more dog parks in Kansas City. As our city continues to have people who dedicate more and more time to their dogs, our city leaders have been slow to react to the increased needs and wants of the dog owning community -- which is the majority of the population in KC. I also got a chance to meet with our local Dogs & Storks presenter, Suezanne Law. She's great - -and an awesome asset to the KC area. She gave a great presentation on canine behavior signs that was designed for kids.

The event was set to raise money for Half Way Home Pet Adoptions -- the new privatized shelter in Kansas City, MO. The new privatized shelter has put an emphasis on adoptions and has more than halved the kill rates in KCMO in 2 short months.

Last night, KCDA was recognized as a finalist for Animal Welfare organization of the year at the Pet ConnectionPet Humanitarian Awards banquet. We didn't win (nor do I expect that we got more than even a token vote), but I thought it was fun to be recognized. KCDA started as a grass-roots organization, with just the hope of helping people to learn how to work with their city governments on legislative issues that deal with dogs (and cats, despite our name). As a group, we have (by almost design), gone pretty well unnoticed in the animal welfare community in KC -- so it is nice that people are staring to notice what it is we're doing.

I met a few folks at the event that I didn't know - including the Pet Humanitarian of the Year winner who was the one responsible for builidng out the feral cat program that sends feral cats out to farmers in Kansas as barn cats to help with Trap/Neuter/Release programs for feral cats.

It is great how many awesome programs we have going on in the Kansas City area. We don't always work so well together at times (although we're getting better), but there are a lot of different pockets of great things going on in Kansas City for pets, it's hard not to get excited.

So that's been my week. Hopefully I'll get a chance to get caught up this week. No promises....but we'll try.

June 19, 2009

The Pet Conncetion (a rescue here in Kansas City, not the popular blog) is hosting its 7th annual Pet Humanitarian Recognition Dinner on Saturday, June 20th from 5-11 pm. The event will be at the Theme Party Emporium at 2420 Merriam Lane in Kansas City, KS.

The event is a nice one that recognizes just a few of the hundreds of people that volunteer their lives and time to helping animals.

KCDA is up for an award, some come on out and show your support. You can call the Pet Connection with details at 913-671-PETS (7387).

June 18, 2009

I posted about this last week, but there are a couple of new things to add to the schedule that I think are pretty cool.

LollaPAWlooza is a benefit to raise money for Halfway Home Pet Adoptions (the new privatized shelter for KCMO) and Sirius Dog Adoptions.

The event is Saturday, June 20 from 9am - 3 pm at 6425 Wornall.

From 9am- noon they are doing microchips for $25 (word has it that the new shelter folks actually screen for chips) and $10 vaccinations.

There will be dog and cat adoptions available all day.

A local trainer, Pat Hennessy is also going to be giving Tellington Touch demonstrations at 10:10 and 11:10

Also, Suezanne Law will be giving an official Dogs and Storks demonstration on techniques to prevent biting by dogs around small children. I've mentioned the Dogs & Storks program a lot here because a) children are often the victim of dog bites which are easily preventable if dogs and children are better trained and managed aroudn each other and b) because many dogs end up in shelters because parents don't know how to manage their dog around their newborn and feel like they must choose between the two -- when in reality, they can have both -- a happy dog and a happy baby living peacefully together. Suezanne is the only Dogs & Storks trainer in the KC area, so I'm interested to hear from her.

So come on out -- learn a little something and contribute to a great cause.